Although obscuring the exact locations of animal and plant observations may protect them from risks such as poaching, some scientists argue it could lead to errors in scientific studies.
Rusby Contreras-Díaz was scrolling through a biodiversity database, looking at places where people had spotted margays and jaguars, when she noticed something odd: Every location had an uncertainty of 30 kilometers. Contreras-Díaz—a mammologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico—had hoped to use the observations to map where the two carnivores were found in Mexico. But the uncertainty in the data gave her pause.
But for some species, the location data aren’t entirely accurate. Whenever a user reports seeing a species that is listed as threatened or endangered, iNaturalist automatically obscures the exact coordinates, creating a random location within a certain distance that varies depending on the latitude.
Ihlow agrees. In her view, the locations of species that are heavily affected by poaching and the pet trade should stay obscured in the database, but the vast majority of other threatened species could benefit from exact location data.
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